The Honey Carnival

Susie had fallen down and cut her knee badly and John was bored and poking the Newspaper man’s dog with his stick which was a sword and we all wanted to go home, because the parade was over. All the dark men in dark suits had come and filled the space, treading on all the confetti with shiny shoes like grease and Susie was sad saying “I’m poorly, I’m poorly,” and picking at her plaster with sticky candyfloss fingers. The parade was gone. I went round the corner of the street to see where with all the lights and colours but a bear was in the way. Sat next to it was a little old lady cracking nuts which she fed to the bear like a baby.
“Don’t step on a crack now, you hear?” She had a laugh like wicked witches in the Christmas play, rough and crackly.

I saw them three times that week and never again, there were three performers and one bear and the bear had a big chain on its neck which went clank clank every time it moved. It was slow and heavy and clanked away after the music stopped but sad like it never wanted to stop dancing, never never. (All the people here now are fast and hurry but Don’t Step On A Crack, because the bears will get you but no one here seems to care not like me and Suzie).
“He loves all the lights and cheers, you see.”
“The bear?”
“Yes, Tomato lives for it! Strange in a bear but not all animals are wild in the same way, you might say. Or I might.” Venezuela was old and odd but we liked her smell of nuts and paint.
Tomato the bear could ride a bike, peel an orange and stand on his feet, and I couldn’t. The first night we went we watched him dance too, but only with Venezuela’s whistle, and the second night we brought him honey in a big jar, Suzie and me.

He danced first this time, big feet thudding with clicking claws and his front paws that were like hands held out in front, still sticky with honey from the jar. The bike came next, with Tomato bowing before getting on and cycling backwards, and forwards, and THUNK. The man behind us began to laugh, hawing like a donkey. Tomato looked up and after that he never ate nor cycled nor danced not once.

The third time I saw them I was on my own and I am glad- they had no shoes, or bike, or chain, and they sat sad and thin at the bus station. Tomato was very still, and slow, dark like brownish black and smelling strong of old meat or maybe mouldy leaves. Venezuela, Arabian Beauty of the Night curled close to him but Tomato looked dead. In a week he was, and 5 men with a truck had to take him away in a green plastic cloth. In four days Venezuela Arabian Beauty of the Night went with him, like the most normal thing in the world.

by Kirsty Judge